Hyperion
by pollywantsa
Summary: She was the great experiment – NASA's first manned probe to one of Earth's nearest neighbours. And now she was back. (TV-verse)
1. Chapter 1

**HYPERION**

* * *

><p><strong>PART ONE <strong>

* * *

><p>John cursed, finished tucking his shirt in and did up his fly.<p>

The mayday was faint, but it was enough to crackle through the headset he wore habitually around _Thunderbird Five_ as he attended to his duties. And even, as now, when he attended to more personal matters. He sealed the toilet and depressed the evacuate control, waited just a second for the vacuum pump to explode noisily into action and then subside, just as noisily, into silence.

There was a corresponding moment of silence in the headset, and then the mayday crackled through again, faint, and far away. At this strength the message was too distorted for him to recognise more than a few static-filled words – he would have to return to the comms centre and boost the signal if he hoped to decipher enough to understand. But to his practiced ears it was already clear it was an automated beacon. The question was… was it a genuine call for help, or a message kicking in from a long-abandoned space station or transport, floating unattended in orbit around the Earth.

John spared a moment to scratch himself as the message replayed faintly in his ears. His bet, if he were a betting man, which he wasn't, well … not usually. There were exceptions to every rule, and there were always occasions when one brother or another would do something stupid, and there was always cash to be had in that.

John sniffed, spared a fleeting gripe of irritation at the post-nasal drip that had plagued him since his last drop earthside, and returned his thoughts to the matter at hand. His bet was that it was one of NASA's abandoned transfer hulks, one of the myriad that were filling up the planet's ever-congesting orbit planes with junk, and filling _Thunderbird Five's _network with static and crap.

* * *

><p>Scott glanced through the lounge window at the waning afternoon, looked back at Gordon, seated opposite, and proffered the guitar towards him. 'Here,' he said. 'Lesson over.'<p>

Gordon looked at the guitar, looked at Scott, and left the instrument hanging in the air.

'C'mon.' The guitar hung suspended in Scott's outstretched hand. 'Take it.'

Gordon shook his head, his lips set in a firm line. 'The lesson aint over.'

'It's definitely over. There are callouses on my fingers.'

'Scott, we've discussed this. The callouses are the most important part – you need to _cultivate_ those callouses if you ever want to play properly.'

Scott's lips set in a line that quite matched the determined line of his brother's. He stood the guitar on its end, the instrument's neck balanced lightly in the crook of his hand. 'The mistake you make is assuming I want to learn at all, let alone properly.'

Gordon puffed air through his lips in a display of exasperation. He scooped the guitar out of Scott's grip and laid the instrument across his lap. 'Then what have you been doing for the last fifteen years?'

'Exactly. Fifteen years. And I haven't got any better at it than when I started. It's time to give up.' Scott leant back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. 'I give up.'

Scott gave it up with such finality that Gordon was temporarily lost for words. 'But…' he said. And then again, 'but…'

'But nothin'.' The arms remained resolutely folded across Scott's chest, though the blue eyes loosed their grip on his brother and wandered aimlessly around the room. Behind the eyes Scott's mind also wandered. The only reason he'd picked up a guitar in the first place was when he figured out that girls liked guys in bands, and, like all teenage boys, Scott wanted to be the guy in the band. Unfortunately for Scott, it appeared that musical ability ran haphazardly through the Tracy family, and as first cab off the genetic rank it seemed to have forgotten him altogether – leaping bodily over him to get to Virgil, scrambling roughshod across John to Gordon, and god knows even Alan showed some talent whenever he sat down to plaster his hands across the piano.

In terms of the guitar, all Scott had managed between the ages of fifteen and seventeen were the most basic of chord progressions – nowhere near good enough to get him into a band, or to get him the girls – while Gordon seemed to have stumbled onto the instrument with a sensitivity that belied his youth, and hands that held the promise of greater things to come. All of which he'd given up for swimming and submarining.

'C'mon,' Gordon said, bringing Scott's gaze back into focus. 'You need to practice. You don't want a repeat of last Christmas, do – '

'Gordon.'

Gordon snorted. His greatest blessing in life was his perfect recall, and right now he was joyfully recalling Scott's lame-ass Christmas guitar solo.

Scott's arms and legs unfolded as he saw the smile widen across Gordon's face. He knew exactly what was going on inside Gordon's head, and he darted forward threateningly in the chair. 'So help me, Gordon – '

'Alright, alright!' Gordon's hands lifted in supplication. 'Jeez. You're such an old – '

* * *

><p>John scooted his chair closer to the console and hunkered down to do what he liked to do best. Fingers recently kissed by sun and sea rested soft against the panel, tested the surface of the metal, felt for the faint thrum of <em>Thunderbird Five's<em> heart the way a safecracker feels for the falling tumblers of a combination lock. Satisfied, the fingers moved, isolated the signal, boosted the gain, estimated coordinates, distance, speed, trajectory, identified the call sign…

The call sign.

John's head lifted, eyes widening in disbelief.

* * *

><p>The signal from John's portrait was a welcome relief, diverting Scott's attention just enough for Gordon to scramble out from under. Not that he'd ever been in any danger. Scott's raised fist was symbolic only, of what he'd <em>like<em> to do to Gordon, if he ever had half a chance. Oh yeah, if Gordon ever _gave_ him half a chance…

'What is it, John?' Scott was all business as John's face appeared on the screen, his fist falling to his side a touch too slow to avoid a raised eyebrow from _Thunderbird Five's_ monitor.

'A rescue?' Gordon traversed the short distance to his father's desk and settled himself on the couch opposite.

'No,' said John. 'At least, I don't think it's a rescue.'

'Which is it?' Scott's voice lost some of its urgency as he walked around the desk and sat down in his father's chair. 'Yes or no?'

'I think we need Father.'

Scott exhaled through his teeth, stood straight back up and toggled his father's intercom. 'Anybody else?'

'Maybe Brains.'

'Done.' Scott moved to the side of the desk and hitched himself into a half-sit on its edge. He fixed Gordon with a steely gaze. _Later,_ he mouthed, and tried to keep the smile from his eyes as Gordon fixed an expression of utter bewilderment on his face and raised his shoulders in innocent confusion.

'This isn't over,' Scott muttered as a familiar step sounded in the doorway.

'What isn't over?'

Jeff's voice made Scott jump, made his head spin ninety degrees on his neck. _How the hell does he do that?_

Jeff ignored Scott's flummoxed expression and settled himself behind his desk, looking up sharply when he realised John's portrait was active. 'John,' he said, not waiting for Scott's response. 'Do we have an emergency?'

'I don't think so, Father.'

Jeff leant back in his chair. 'Well then… ' He glanced sideways as Brains joined them, pausing momentarily to wait for the young man to be seated. 'What's this about?'

John glanced down at his console, and then back at his father. 'At fourteen thirty-five today I picked up a signal from reference 3883 – '

Brains visibly started in his seat. 'That's, ah, half way to, ah, Mars.'

'Correction,' John said. 'It's half way _from_ Mars. And heading in this direction.'

'What?'

'But nobody's gone to Mars,' Scott said. 'The Zero-X mission is still a year away – right now nobody has anything even capable of going to Mars.'

'Spectrum does,' said Brains. 'They've sent two expeditions to, ah, date, and both have, ah, returned.'

Jeff looked at Brains curiously, surprised he knew what Spectrum was up to when the rest of the world didn't. He would have to talk to him about his sources. Soon.

'It's not a Spectrum vehicle,' John said, pre-empting his father's question. 'And it wasn't going to Mars. It's...' He paused, as if he couldn't quite believe it himself. 'It's the _Hyperion_.'

There was a moment of silence in the lounge. And then –

'You're joking.' Scott slid from his perch on the desk. 'The _Hyperion_ disappeared, what, five years ago – '

'Eight,' said Brains.

'Eight,' said Scott, 'and it was going to Venus. What the hell is it doing halfway to Mars?'

'Halfway _from_ Mars,' John corrected.

'John, a-are you sure it's, the, ah, _Hyperion?'_ Brains asked.

'It idents as _Hyperion_ by its call sign.'

'You think it's a beacon?' Jeff asked.

'It seems so. I pinged a standard mayday response, but at that distance I don't expect a response for another twenty-four hours.'

'There won't be a response.' Gordon's comment fell like a stone into the room, made everybody turn to look.

'What?' he said, defensively. 'Surely the crew would be dead by now. Eight years is a long time out, when they were only supposed to be going for two. Their supplies would have run out years ago. And if they were going the wrong way…'

'I guess the question,' Jeff contemplated the mystery, 'is what happened? How did they end up so far off course?'

'The question,' Scott resumed his position on the edge of the desk, 'is are we going to do anything about it?'

'It wouldn't be a, ah, a rescue,' Brains said, giving voice to the obvious. 'It would be a salvage.'

'It would be history.' Jeff's gaze turned inward. He seemed to be struggling with an internal decision, weighing his thoughts, his options. 'John,' he said at last. ' Get onto NASA. Tell them what you've picked up.' He leant back in his chair, ran a hand distractedly along the edge of the desk. 'Ask them what they want us to do.'

* * *

><p>It had taken forty minutes for John to make his way through the tiers of bureaucracy at NASA. Forty minutes punctuated by the standard 'you're calling from <em>where?'<em> Followed by the ever-charming 'how do we know you're who you say you are?' And then the drawn-out moment of silence when he stated the reason why he was calling, and what would NASA like International Rescue to do?

Three hours after that, after NASA had aimed their satellite network into the blank space between Earth and Mars, confirmed the transmission source and the call sign, three hours after they'd come to terms with the cold, hard truth of _Hyperion's_ return and called him back on the secure frequency he'd set aside for the moment of decision, the reality was all too sobering.

'Bring our men home.'

It was only then that John felt the import of his discovery. Felt it hit him like a fist to the chest, leaving him hollow and numb and, strangely, ashamed. Until that moment _Hyperion_ had been a hypothetical. Just another _Marie Celeste,_ a ghost ship, haunting the nightmares of all travellers in space. A piece of metal lost in mystery, and so lost in time that the world barely registered that _Hyperion_ had once had a crew, that two flesh-and-blood men had, light years before, disappeared into legend.

'Yes, sir,' John had said to Director Pederson, after his first words had failed him. 'We'll do our best to bring them home.' And he knew they would, too.

* * *

><p>'I've, ah, already calculated best conditions for departure.' Brains looked down at the clipboard on his lap, more for diversion than for any need to see the information. 'Thursday, ah, evening, seventeen-hundred, should provide an optimum, a-atmospheric window.'<p>

Jeff nodded. 'Scott. I want you and Alan to take _Thunderbird Three_ and rendezvous with the _Hyperion._'His gaze crossed the room, lingered on Virgil, then settled abruptly on Gordon. 'Gordon. You're in.'

'Yes, Father.' Gordon's voice betrayed none of his surprise at the unexpected selection.

'At best speed,' John continued from _Thunderbird Five, _'you should intersect _Hyperion's _path in just under sixteen days.'

'Sixteen days?' said Gordon, the air of neutrality dropping from his face. 'One way?'

'Mars is at perihelion,' John said, 'which means it's at its closest approach to Earth this decade.'

'And don't forget,' Scott added, '_Hyperion_ is already halfway here.'

'A-and,' Brains said, '_Thunderbird Three_ is capable of, ah, faster speeds than anything else, ah, officially, that, ah, we know of.'

'What everybody is trying to say,' Alan continued the tirade that he knew would be prickling under Gordon's skin, 'is that sixteen days is incredibly fast considering the distances involved.'

Gordon leant back in his seat and ran a hand backwards through his hair. 'It's just…that's thirty-two days, total!'

'All going, ah, well,' Brains supplied.

Gordon shot Brains a dubious glance, then dropped his gaze to the floor and mumbled morosely, 'what the hell are we going to do cooped up in _Thunderbird Three_ for thirty-two days?'

'How is this different to your tour of duty aboard the _Manta?'_ Alan's voice was tinged with the faintest hint of sarcasm.

'Trust me,' Gordon said to the floor, 'it's gonna be different.'

'No sailors,' said Virgil, unexpectedly. And loudly.

Gordon's gaze slid to where Virgil lounged, limbs akimbo, on the settee. He ground his teeth together, eyelids narrowing as Alan erupted into peals of laughter.

* * *

><p>Jeff stood beneath <em>Thunderbird Three's<em> entry port, watching as his sons finalised the loading of supplies into International Rescue's largest, most expensive, and most volatile craft. Sixteen days to _Hyperion_ and sixteen days back necessitated eight weeks minimum supplies were inventoried and stowed, but it still didn't seem like enough. Jeff knew from harsh experience how quickly problems in space could spiral into disaster, and how fast supplies could run out. And he knew there was nobody out there capable of rescuing _Thunderbird Three_ if it got into any trouble. It was a question that Jeff pondered every time his sons were on a rescue… an old saying that flitted into his head at the same time the butterflies started drumming their way through his insides: _who will rescue the rescuers?_

Jeff lips set in a hard line as he watched Scott trudge the last of the food supplies up the gantry and pause on the threshold as Virgil squeezed past him on his trip back down. The smell of rocket fuel wafted down from the giant engines. No doubt Alan was checking the intake valves, priming the ignition in preparation for launch. Jeff let the odour wash over him, visualised a snapshot of his youngest son at _Three's_ console, felt the old feelings of prelaunch nerves stirring in his gut. His arms, his legs, the muscles of his stomach tightened as the long-forgotten buzz of adrenaline washed unexpectedly through him. Saliva flooded his mouth and he swallowed, hard, as his heart beat just that bit faster in his chest.

Virgil now stood at the bottom of the gantry, watching and waiting, arms resting on the metal fretwork and one foot poised on the braking system, ready to disengage and shove off. 'Dad,' he said.

Jeff turned to look at him.

'They'll be okay,' Virgil said. 'It's a simple mission. Straight there and straight back, remember.'

'I remember.'

Their eyes met, then quickly glanced away. It was the same every time, for those who stayed behind.

Jeff checked his watch and looked towards the top of the gantry. With the exception of himself and Virgil, the combined personnel of International Rescue was currently inside _Thunderbird Three_, checking and stowing and preparing. 'They should be – ' Jeff closed his mouth as Scott descended the gantry with short sharp steps.

'Almost ready for lift-off,' Scott announced. He landed on the hangar floor and turned a wry gaze back towards the open hatchway. 'Just waiting for Alan and Tin-Tin to say their goodbyes.'

Behind him, Virgil snorted. Scott's mouth crooked with amusement as he turned to look at him. 'I guess this is goodbye for all of us.' He proffered a hand towards his brother, his expression abruptly sober.

Virgil's hand met Scott's, firmly. 'Only for a month.'

Scott nodded, released his grip, and turned to look at his father. 'Dad.' He extended a hand. 'Why don't you come with?'

Jeff looked at him, startled. 'What?'

'You said it yourself. It'll be history.'

Jeff smiled. A shy smile. An awkward smile. The smile of a man who has been seen all the way through. He laughed, gently, and took the proffered hand. 'Good luck, son.' He dropped Scott's hand, suddenly afraid of the moment of farewell.

A commotion sounded from the interior of _Thunderbird Three_, followed by Alan's voice, shouting, and then Brains erupted awkward and red-faced through the access hatch and made his way down the gantry.

'Sounds like Alan and Tin-Tin's farewell has been well and truly interrupted,' Virgil grinned.

'Yes.' Brains landed on the deck and scuttled behind Jeff the way a crab scuttles behind a rock.

'Let me guess,' Jeff sighed. 'Gordon.'


	2. Chapter 2

**HYPERION**

* * *

><p><strong>PART TWO <strong>

* * *

><p><em>Tall and tan and young and lovely…<em>

Gordon stirred in his sleep, sank his head further down into what passed for a pillow on _Thunderbird Three._

…_the girl from Ipanema goes walking…_

Consciousness flickered at the edges of Gordon's brain, percolated slowly through his grey-matter from the outside in.

…_and when she passes…_

One eye slid blearily open.

…_each one she passes…_

Gordon extracted a hand from his sleeping pouch and rubbed angrily at his face.

…_goes…_

'Alan!' he bellowed, slapping the flat of his hand against the bulkhead.

There was no response, just the continuing strains of the century-old song that his brother had dredged up from an obscure website, assisted, no doubt, by a dedicated relay from _Thunderbird Five._ Alan had found it hilarious to pipe the music into _Three's _sleeping quarters whenever he wanted Gordon to drag himself out of bed. Where, Gordon ceded ruefully, he seemed to be spending way too much time.

He struggled awkwardly out of the pouch and landed with his socked feet on the metal floor, looked around the small sleeping chamber and realised he was alone. Gordon blinked at his watch. Nine-twenty.

_Oh well. _

That's what happens when there's no night or day, no sun or moon or sky, no tide going in or going out to tell him what time of the day it was. Or even to tell him which way was up.

Gordon scratched at an armpit.

And Jesus Christ, was he ever _bored._

* * *

><p>'I guess we won't be needing Mr Sinatra any longer.' Alan leaned back in the command chair and disconnected the internal comms. 'Looks like he's done his job.'<p>

Scott couldn't help but feel disappointed when Alan cut the music. He had been enjoying 'Girl from Ipanema.' It reminded him of his childhood – his grandmother had regularly sashayed around the living room to 'Old Blue Eyes,' and during this morning's distraction Scott had been having a hard time keeping his toes from tapping against _Thunderbird Three's_ flight deck.

Gordon shuffled into the control room, fell heavily into the spare seat, and sat for a moment scratching at himself and adjusting his clothing as Scott and Alan looked on.

'I can't stand it,' Gordon said at last. 'I itch all over.' He continued scratching. 'And I smell musty,' he said, when he received no reply. 'Do I smell musty?' He sniffed the air, like a piglet searching for truffles. 'Oh,' he said, looking at Alan. 'It's you who smells musty.'

'Fer Chrissakes.' Scott's toes tapped at last against the deck, a sharp report that stopped Gordon dead in his verbal tracks. 'We _all_ smell musty!'

Alan sighed. 'Why do I bother getting you out of bed?'

'I don't know.' Gordon ceased his scratching. 'Why _do_ you bother getting me out of bed?'

* * *

><p>John despatched the subspace packet, sat back and tapped a thumb absently against the console. <em>Thunderbird Three<em> was the furthest into space that she'd ever been, and getting further away every minute. She was now completely out of verbal comms range – there was no chance of a two-way conversation, even with an acceptable time-lag. Hadn't been for days. All communication had to be done in packet dumps that took, at today's distances, twelve hours to get there. And twelve hours to get back. And tomorrow it would be sixteen hours. And the day after…

_The day after,_ John turned and looked through the viewport at the dark expanse of space, _Thunderbird Three_ _would be at_ _Hyperion_.

* * *

><p>Scott sat at the main console as <em>Thunderbird Five's<em> most recent packet dump downloaded onto the hard drive and the system commenced the decoding process. It was taking longer than usual, and Scott stared at the screen impatiently as the packet size ticked over into gigabytes. The file was larger than normal, no doubt containing the information from NASA that they'd requested. Finally.

Scott inhaled a lungful of recirculated air. _Gordon was right. The place did smell musty. _He looked across at his brother, hunched beside Alan at the auxiliary control. He couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor bastard. In the past two weeks he'd gone from itchy and irritable to dull and morose. Which, Scott had to admit, was a whole lot easier to deal with.

The console in front of him chimed briefly, indicating the decoding was complete. Scott read the stream of words that blinked across the screen, extracted the _Hyperion's_ codes and schematics and dumped a copy to the auxiliary console.

'Fellas,' he said.

* * *

><p>'Morning, John.' Jeff looked up from his desk as John's communication portrait flared to life.<p>

'Morning, Father. I've received a comms dump from _Thunderbird Three.' _

'And?'

'_Data received,'_ John read from his monitor. _'Instructions understood. Timeframe to Hyperion: fifteen hours.'_

'Fifteen hours.' Jeff leaned back in his chair. 'Which means they're already there.'

'At this distance the packets are taking sixteen hours, one-way. They may have completed the mission by now and be on their way back.'

Jeff nodded. 'Did they say anything else?'

'Uh… Just one thing.' John looked apologetically at his father. '_We smell.'_

* * *

><p>Gordon leant over Scott at the external monitor, watching as <em>Thunderbird Three<em> drifted towards _Hyperion_. The exploration vessel showed dully on the monitor, touched faintly by the distant yellow sun. It seemed to Gordon as though _Hyperion_ stood still, motionless in space, instead of hurtling through it at eighty thousand miles an hour.

'Meteor damage.' Scott's stylus tapped against the screen.

Gordon leaned down closer to look. 'Maybe that's what took out the pilots.'

'I don't think so.' Scott attention moved to the sensors. 'The hull hasn't been breached, and the engines are still running. She even has atmosphere, if this thing is to be trusted.'

'How can she still be running after all these years?'

Scott shrugged. 'I guess NASA built this thing to last.'

Gordon fell silent, concentrated on studying the data that _Thunderbird Three_ continued to gather. 'Life signs?' he asked at last, was unsurprised when Scott shook his head.

'Nothing.'

Alan diverted his attention from manoeuvring _Thunderbird Three_ alongside _Hyperion_ and glanced at the sensor display. 'The meteor must've taken out the communications. That might explain NASA's loss of signal.'

'I don't know.' Scott brought up another screen. 'According to this, _Hyperion_ is completely viable.' He sat back in his seat and looked at Alan. 'None of which explains how she got this far out, in the wrong direction, and then somehow turned around and came back.'

'Autopilot?' Alan turned his attention back to the flight controls.

'Maybe.' It was a slim hope, but nothing else Scott could come up with explained it. He moved in closer to the monitor as _Hyperion's_ battered hulk filled the screen. 'Maybe we'll find out when we get on board.'

* * *

><p>Driven by an internal cue, as though somewhere, somehow, a factory whistle had sounded and signalled the end of another day, Jeff Tracy straightened at his desk, stretched his shoulders, cracked his neck, and looked out at the world that lay darkening beyond the window. It was only at that moment, when he allowed his senses to extend beyond the pile of contracts on his desk, that he realised another clear-sky day had passed, and that he had wasted it on paperwork.<p>

The sound of the piano filled the open expanse of lounge – the piece was well-progressed, and Virgil must have been at it for some time without him even noticing. Jeff leaned back in his chair and watched as Virgil hunched over the keyboard, lost in the music, unaware of his expression pinched in concentration, of the sweat that sheened his face. Unaware, even, of the hair that fell into his eyes. Jeff studied him critically. His son was overdue for a haircut, and there was always the possibility that he would fall again from grace. Jeff's lips pursed imperceptibly at the thought of Virgil reverting to his long-hair days – another fear he had to constantly contend with.

Jeff rose from his chair, passed unnoticed across the lounge and poured himself a drink from the bar. A full one. Forget that two-finger shit. He had an itch in his throat that needed scratching, and butterflies in his stomach that needed drowning. He clamped his fingers around the glass, stared down into the deep pool of bourbon and wondered why he was so on edge. Was he wrong to send them? Was it guilt that he'd allowed his ties with NASA to influence his decision and put his sons in danger? And for what – to salvage a piece of metal long consigned to history as bad luck.

He chinked ice into his poison, tilted the glass and closed his eyes as the alcohol passed burning across his tongue. Oh yeah, the itch was scratched, but despite the sweet hot bourbon that settled into his stomach, those butterflies kept on fluttering, beating against his insides to remind him of his sons on _Three, _alone in the farthest wastes of space – further even than he himself had been, and so far away he couldn't see them, couldn't hear them. Could barely feel them. Behind his closed eyes he remembered how dark space was. How it felt. How it smelled. How it was so cold it could freeze the surface of your eyeballs off and leave you blind and lost and without hope. He'd seen that once, and it haunted him, still, in the quiet, dark spaces of the night.

Jeff opened his eyes, realised the music had stopped. He raised the glass to his lips and drained the dregs in one smooth draught.

* * *

><p>Scott completed his check of the seals on Gordon's helmet, made sure the thruster pack was secured to his brother's harness, spun him back around and brought them face-to-face.<p>

'Gordon.' Scott placed his hands on Gordon's shoulders and looked him solemnly in the eyes. 'This is your last chance to scratch.'

Gordon laughed, puffed a thin film of vapour onto the inside of his visor.

Scott let his hands fall from his brother's shoulders. He turned to Alan, who leaned, waiting and watchful,against the airlock door. 'Okay. NASA's request is that we board _Hyperion_, engage the overrides and course correct to bring her into Earth orbit. Alan, once we access the flight deck, we'll uplink the flight control directly to _Three's_ navigation, and you can input the codes into _Hyperion's_ autopilot.'

'FAB.' Alan pushed himself away from the door.

Scott adjusted the equipment on his belt and turned around so that Gordon could check his seals. 'We all saw the transmission, so you know we've been requested to treat this as a crime scene. NASA wants to undertake its own investigation when _Hyperion_ returns, so Gordon, if we find Gunnar and Holman, we leave them where they are.'

The ident images downloaded from NASA flashed through Gordon's mind as his hands ran expertly across Scott's seals. Steven Gunnar, blond-haired and blue-eyed, smiling hopefully at the press photographers, and Andrew Holman, Gunnar's diametric opposite – stocky, swarthy, the faintest of scowls touching his thick-fleshed lips. Polar opposites, if ever there were any, and Gordon wondered what marvels of psychometric testing had resulted in those two living – and dying – together.

Gordon's fingers quested towards Scott's thruster pack and paused there. He wondered what had happened – if the two men had died together in one unexpected, cataclysmic accident. Or how long one had outlived the other, only to die in silence. And alone.

Gordon shuddered, an involuntary tremor that shivered up his spine and transferred itself to the hand that rested at Scott's back. Scott felt the tremor, and angled his head around to look at him. Gordon ignored the querying gaze and slapped his brother hard on the back. 'All set,' he said.

'Alan.' Scott turned back around. 'Wait for my signal and keep _Thunderbird Three_ steady where she is.' He nodded towards the airlock door. 'Okay. Open her up.'

Alan keyed the airlock open, watched as his brothers entered the chamber and the door slid closed again. There was a pneumatic hiss as the lock sealed and the atmosphere drained out of the tiny space. Alan waited as the airlock completed its cycle, peered at his brothers through the tiny viewport and adjusted his headset. 'Comms check. Are you reading me?'

'FAB.' Scott turned to face the outer door, one hand hard against the wall as he braced against the loss of gravity.

Gordon swivelled his head and gave Alan a thumbs-up through the viewport. 'FAB.'

Alan keyed the panel again and watched as the external hatch opened onto darkness. There was a brief pause, and then Scott and Gordon kicked off into the void, like swimmers pushing off into a fathomless tide.

'Good luck, fellas,' Alan said. Listened as the sounds of his brothers' breathing filtered reassuringly into his ears.

* * *

><p>Alan returned to the flight deck, slid into his chair and activated the external camera array in one fluid movement. A few adjustments and he was rewarded with a clear image of Scott and Gordon as they jetted the short distance between <em>Three<em> and _Hyperion. _He could still hear their breathing in his ears, the regular rhythm interrupted only when Scott advised he had reached the airlock hatch.

'Right behind you,' Gordon responded, his voice coloured by the high thin quality that enriched oxygen lends to the lungs.

'In position.' Scott turned towards _Three_, gave a brief wave at the camera, and then returned his attention to the _Hyperion's_ airlock and the access panel positioned flush against the seal_._

'Standing by,' Alan said, watching as the hatch slid open and Scott and Gordon disappeared into the dark space beyond. He glanced at the ship's chronometer, noted the time, and turned back to the monitor. But by then his brothers were gone, lost from view.

* * *

><p>Scott followed Gordon out of the airlock and into <em>Hyperion's<em> interior, keying the hatch back into place behind them. The door thudded dully into its coupling and sealed with a prolonged pneumatic hiss, closing them in.

The passageway they found themselves in was narrow and dim, lit at regular intervals by auxiliary lighting. The pale glow of the illumination reflected dully from the walls and floor and cast the path ahead of them into patches of shadow and light. _Thunderbird Three's_ sensors hadn't lied – _Hyperion_ was still functioning, and Scott waited as Gordon popped the seals on his helmet, slid it over his head and tentatively sniffed the air.

Gordon's expression transformed before Scott's eyes, his face twisting in disgust. 'Jesus,' he choked out. He looked both ways along the tiny corridor. 'God, the stink on _Thunderbird Three's_ got nothing on this!'

'Can you breathe?'

Gordon coughed weakly, his face crumpling as he gulped another mouthful of rancid air and nodded in not-so-reassuring encouragement. 'I can breathe.'

Scott popped his own seals and slid his helmet off. The odour hit him the instant his face was exposed to the air, a rank wave that rushed thick into his nostrils. He clamped his mouth shut and resisted the urge to gag.

'What do you think it is?' Gordon looked both ways along the corridor as though looking for the source of the stench. Or at least the direction it was coming from.

'Don't know,' Scott said, trying not to breathe. 'Maybe something is fouling the oxygen scrubber. Who knows what eight years of build-up in the filters could do?'

'Or maybe it's coming from Gunnar and Holman.' Gordon turned in the direction of the flight deck. 'They must be in there,' he nodded in the direction he was looking, 'somewhere.'

Scott followed Gordon's gaze and stood for a moment, contemplating the gloomy interior. Around them the ship rattled and hummed, the tired air recyclers pumping their tainted oxygen dutifully and endlessly through the ducting of the dark, dead corridors. The vent above his head shuddered once, loudly, and jolted Scott out of his contemplation. 'C'mon,' he said.

Gordon waited for Scott to move ahead, and then fell into step behind him.'What if we find them?'

There was a moment of silence, and then, 'it's not like you haven't seen dead men before.'

'This is different.'

Scott turned to look at him. 'How?'

Gordon shrugged. He didn't know how. It just was.

Scott turned back to the darkened passageway. 'If we do find them, remember not to touch them. Our job is to correct the coordinates and reset the engines. After that, _Hyperion_ is on her – '

_What the hell?_

Something moved in the shadows ahead.

Scott reached a hand back, caught Gordon mid-step and stopped him in his tracks.


	3. Chapter 3

**HYPERION**

* * *

><p><strong>PART THREE <strong>

* * *

><p>A shadow stepped out of the darkness and shuffled its way slowly towards them.<p>

'What,' Gordon breathed in Scott's ear, 'the hell?'

The shadow paused, cocked its head at the words, and Scott saw dark hair glinting beneath the auxiliary lighting.

'Commander?' Scott called into the mottled darkness. 'Commander Holman?'

The figure moved, shuffled in their direction, brought with it a waft of foulness that made Scott choke back on bile. 'Commander Holman?' he called again, because who else could it be? 'Do you need assistance?'

Gordon moved in close behind him, and Scott could feel his brother's body wound tighter than a spring and ready at any moment to snap. 'Scott…' Gordon whispered, and Scott felt Gordon's arm moving, reaching for the pistol at his belt.

'Wait,' Scott said, but Gordon's arm still moved, and Scott knew the gloved hand had slid into the holster and that his brother's finger had curled around the trigger.

The face loomed closer, the eyes wide and staring, the lips moving silently. The shambling figure came up close and stared hard into Scott's face, and Scott had no doubt that this was Holman, miraculous and whole, and how the hell was that even possible? He shook himself, an involuntary shudder that ratcheted along his spine, because against all the odds, the man was somehow still alive!

In the thin space in front of him Holman's mouth moved, the tongue glistening wet behind the teeth, and Scott realised at once where the stink was coming from.

'Commander Holman.' Scott stood firm, didn't reel back from the overpowering odour that slammed him right between the eyes. 'Do you need medical assistance?' Because God, the man must have been rotting from the inside out.

The astronaut's lips parted, stiff and unwilling, and a deep sigh issued from his throat.

'We're from International Rescue.' Scott stared into the grey face. The eyes also grey. And pale. So pale. 'We're here…' he stopped, checked his sentence, changed his tack, because this mission had just turned one-eighty on its head and the entire game had been changed. 'We received your mayday and are here to rescue you.'

Holman's head shook, whether from misunderstanding or palsy, Scott didn't know. Light flared in the grey eyes, and the face loomed suddenly closer.

'Scott.' Gordon's hand clasped around Scott's arm and jerked him back a step. It looked like Holman had been about to fall on him, and something, something different looked out of the pale grey eyes. Scott blinked, backed up uncertainly against his brother.

The astronaut wavered on his feet. The light in the eyes was gone, and Scott shook his head. He cursed himself for his unprofessional behaviour, but remained close against Gordon, with his brother's hand still curled hard around his arm. 'Commander, we've come to return you to Earth.'

_Earth. _Holman's mouth worked as though trying to shape the word, as if he were only just learning to talk. His eyes moved from Scott's face to Gordon's, and rested there, unnervingly.

'Sir,' Scott said, and this time the question was blunt. 'Is Commander Gunnar alive?'

The grey eyes moved back to his, and Scott felt sweat prick along his spine. This was too weird. It was like talking to a zombie – but then that's probably what happened when you spent too much time away from people, isolated and alone and surrounded by nothing but the endless empty spaces between the stars.

'Commander,' he continued, 'if you'll show us to the flight deck, we can provide a course correction that will bring _Hyperion_ into Earth orbit. Then you can transfer to our vehicle – '

Gordon's knee nudged into Scott from behind. Hard.

'If you'll just show us to the flight deck,' Scott ignored Gordon breathing heavy down his neck, 'we'll initiate the course correction.'

Still Holman stood there, staring.

'Sir?' Scott's eyes shifted past Holman, towards the end of the passageway. 'The flight deck?'

Something moved in Holman's face, a twitching of the lip, as though thought was coming hard to him. The eyes moved from Scott's face and down his body, rested momentarily at his feet, and then Holman turned, slowly, and shuffled away.

Scott's eyes followed the shambling figure, seeing now the emaciated body, the flight suit hanging loose on the bones. Sympathy welled inside him, sadness at what the man must have lived through, and yet somehow, despite the odds, he had made it this far. If his father had wanted history, he was sure going to get it.

'C'mon.' Scott made to move away, but Gordon still held him by the arm.

'Scott. We can't bring him on board.'

Scott said nothing, his eyes on the miserable figure that moved ahead.

'Look at him,' Gordon whispered. 'He's not right. In the head or something.'

Scott pulled against Gordon's grip. 'He hasn't seen another human being for eight years.'

'And he stinks.' Gordon didn't let go. 'He's rotten or something.'

'Maybe it's what he's been eating.'

'For that matter,' Gordon voice took on an edge of urgency, his fingers curling tighter into Scott's arm, 'what do you think happened to Gunnar?'

'For Chrissakes, Gordon, let go.' Scott turned slightly, saw the pistol still gripped in Gordon's free hand. 'And put the gun away.'

Gordon slid the weapon back into its holster. 'Don't you think this whole thing is – '

'Suspicious?'

'I was going to say odd.' Gordon's eyebrows came together. 'This whole fucking thing is _odd.'_

'Gordon – '

Gordon's hand fell from his brother's arm at the same speed as the sinking of his heart. 'Don't say it.'

Scott said it, and he said it with all the authority of his position. 'We're not leaving him here.' He turned, not waiting for Gordon's response, not wanting to hear it, and followed Holman's path along narrow passageway. Gordon watched his brother's receding back, knowing it was pointless to argue after the field commander badge had been pulled.

Ahead of them, Holman had reached the flight deck. He placed a hand against the access panel, waited as the door slid grudgingly open, then turned and looked back at Scott and Gordon. His expression seemed to beckon them, and the grey eyes glinted as though catching an unseen light. And then Holman was gone, slipping through the door and disappearing into darkness.

Scott reached the threshold moments behind him, stopped in the same place that Holman had stopped, and groped with his gloved hand for the access panel. There was a snap of relays and the overhead lights flared into sudden brilliance.

'I don't believe it,' Scott said as his brother crowded into the doorway beside him.

'How is this even possible?' Gordon's breath was hot in his ear. _'S_ensors said there were no signs of life.'

'The sensors must have been malfunctioning.' Scott shook his head. 'Or maybe I read them wrong…'

'You didn't read them wrong.'

In front of them Holman stood blinking, blinded by the light. Seated at the console, Gunnar sat squinting up at them and raised a hand to shield his pale, grey eyes from the unexpected glare.

'I'll stay here and initiate the uplink to _Three.'_ Scott's voice was low, but his tone spoke volumes. He cast his brother a meaningful glance, was gratified when Gordon slipped back out of the flight deck.

* * *

><p>'<em>Hyperion to Thunderbird Three. Alan, are you reading me?'<em>

'Loud and clear, Scott.' Alan hunched forward at his console, eyes glued to _Thunderbird Three's_ external feeds. Truth was, he'd never cut the comms. Had heard every word Scott and Gordon had said. Had wracked his brain in equal measure at the revelation that Holman and Gunnar were still alive, after all these years.

'_I'm initiating the uplink. Advise if you are ready to receive.'_

Alan checked _Three's_ navigation relays one last time and dropped the firewall. 'On my mark, Scott.'

Silence rattled over the comms as Alan made his final adjustments. 'Mark,' he said.

'_Transmitting.'_

Alan watched the as green uplink bar crept its way to a hundred percent. So far so good. 'Uplink complete.' And now to see if _Hyperion_ would accept the data from_ Three._ 'Downloading revised navigation.'

'_FAB.'_

Alan stared at the blinking screen. 'I don't think _Hyperion_ is happy about the interface. It might take a while.'

'_Understood.'_

Alan waited until the monitor stopped blinking and rows of navigation data began to scroll jerkily up the screen, knew that Scott was probably staring at the same haphazard transfer over on _Hyperion._

'_Al?'_

'Scott?'

'_You heard?'_

'I heard,' Alan said.

_Three's _screen blinked once, was overrun by a stream of trajectory data.

'_Can you advise Base?'_

'FAB.'

Alan turned to the comms panel and initiated a packet to _Thunderbird Five._

_Arrived Hyperion. Gunnar and Holman alive. Evacuating to Three. _And then he added, as the uplink to _Hyperion_ terminated and _Three's_ console chimed at the completion of its task: _Mission successful._

* * *

><p>Gordon paused at a junction and ran through the schematics of <em>Hyperion<em> in his head. The crew quarters were located in the centre of the ship, which meant he should turn… left. Gordon turned left, one hand trailing distractedly along the wall, fingers catching in the seams between the pressed-metal panels. Above his head the air vents rattled dully, and in one place streamers had been tied to the grille, fluttering sporadically in the flow of rancid air. _Hyperion's_ smell was still overpowering, but he'd moved past it, dispassionately switched it off. It was no worse than any other rescue he'd been to, when people's insides had spilled out and stained the air with the hot smell of blood and the deep, rank smell of their bowels.

The engines kicked in and set the superstructure shuddering, then just as quickly faded to nothing. Gordon paused beneath one of the auxiliary lights and cocked his head, listening. It was too early for Scott to have initiated full power to the engines. Maybe this was how _Hyperion_ had been limping along all this time, moving on inertia built up out of random bursts from the engines.

The crew quarters loomed ahead of him, the pressure doors hanging open, the rooms dark beyond. Gordon paused at the first door and groped for the lighting panel, stood blinking as he waited for his vision to adjust to the new sensation of illumination. Power wasn't an issue, at least, so it must be Gunnar and Holman's eyesight that accounted for the ever-present darkness.

The room in front of him was of a decent size, given the circumstances. Nowhere near as tiny as the sleeping quarters on _Three,_ and far better appointed. A sleeping pallet took up the right quarter, and to the left of the door a small desk was moulded out of the same material as the wall. A flight suit lay stretched out against the rear of the cubicle, and papers were scattered randomly across the plasticised floor. Gordon had seen messier domiciles, including his own, and given the state of mind of _Hyperion's _crew, and the lethargy that seemed to infect them, it didn't surprise that housekeeping was not top of their agenda.

Above Gordon's head the vent rattled tinnily, incessantly, as his fingers trailed across the desk, across the mementos of somebody's life. He picked up a photograph, had no way of telling if the dark-haired woman belonged to Gunnar or Holman, if the children belonged to one of them, or to nobody at all. His gaze lingered on an image of an elderly couple and he lifted the photograph into the light, studied it closely. Gunnar's parents, he guessed. Which meant the dark-haired woman was probably Gunnar's, as well.

Gordon replaced the photograph carefully back on the desk. There was nothing here, nothing but memories of home, and he was wasting time. He wanted to make his way along the internal skin and see what the meteor damage looked like from the inside.

He surveyed the room one last time, his eyes catching on the flight suit that lay stretched out against the rear wall.

Gordon walked across to it, and poked it with a toe.

* * *

><p>'<em>Scott.' <em>

Scott glanced at Gunnar and Holman as Gordon's voice crackled into his earpiece. Their backs were towards him as they attended to the new data in their console, though it was difficult to see what constructive use they were putting to the task. Their movements still struck him as robotic and slow, though he was still willing to pass that off as the end result of too many years cooped up inside _Hyperion,_ and too many years without human contact.

'_You need to get out of there.' _Gordon's voice pierced urgently into his brain. _'Fast.'_

Scott raised a hand and pressed one finger against his earpiece, cocked his head as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

'_I've found Gunnar and Holman.'_

Scott stiffened, resisted the urge to shout out _'what?'_ He pressed his finger harder against the earpiece, as if doing so would somehow make Gordon's words make more sense.

Gordon's voice crackled again into his ear, repeated his message very loud, and very clear. _'I've found Gunnar and Holman. And they're dead.'_

Scott stared at the backs of the astronauts, trying to reconcile what his eyes said was in front of him, and what the voice in his ear said was not. _What did Gordon mean he'd found Gunnar and Holman, when Gunnar and Holman were sitting right there…?_

Gordon's voice went on speaking, a rapid staccato to the backdrop of the deep booming of Scott's heart.

'_Get out of there. Make whatever excuse you have to, but get the hell out. Meet me at the airlock and I'll make sure Al is standing by.'_

Scott's finger dropped from his ear. He tensed his legs and took a step backwards, the boot of his spacesuit catching on the pressed metal and scuffing loudly across the floor.

Holman turned in his seat and looked at Scott with his pale, grey eyes.

Scott's face betrayed nothing of the fear that coursed through his veins. For the first time he realised what it was about the two men that had unsettled him from the first.

It was the eyes. The pale, pale eyes. It was as though they were dead inside. Null. And void. And it was the void that looked out at Scott now. Peered carefully at him through those two, cold windows in that dead, cold face.

'Well,' Scott said out loud. Too loud. 'If you fellas are okay, I'll just go check what my buddy is up to.' He paused, swallowed, felt a bead of sweat slide down his temple.

* * *

><p>'<em>Hurry.'<em> Gordon's voice was like a mosquito, buzzing in Scott's ear. A relentless, stress-inducing drone, urging him on through _Hyperion's_ rabbit-warren of corridors and hatches.

Scott entered the airlock, jolting forward as Gordon smacked the side of his fist against the access panel and the inner door slammed down hard. Gordon had already sealed his helmet, but Scott could see his brother's face, pale behind the smoked glass of the visor, and his breath flaring moist and hot against the inner surface of the faceplate.

Gordon's voice said, 'do you think they suspected anything?,' but his eyes said much, much more. Scott saw horror there. And fear. And then Gordon slid his sunshield down and Scott saw nothing more.

'I don't think so.' Scott slipped his helmet over his head and engaged the seals. There was a moment of claustrophobic airlessness before the oxygen pump kicked in and sent a flow of air softly across his face. It wasn't enough. Scott dialled up the coolant system, licked his lips and tasted salt. He was inexplicably hot, as though Gordon's panic had somehow infected him and sent his heart rate through the roof. Scott had never seen fear in Gordon before. Of all of them Gordon was the coolest under pressure, the most unflappable. Nothing fazed him. Nothing.

Gordon was still turned towards him, but Scott could see only himself in the reflective visor. He slid his own sunshield into place and dropped his arms to his sides, felt sweat forming warm on the palms of his hands. 'What the hell is – '

'Ready?' Gordon's voice buzzed through his earpiece. Scott nodded uncertainly as Gordon reached out and moved his hands across Scott's suit, checking the connections with rapid movements.

'Good. Now listen.' Gordon's words rattled into Scott's ear with manic intensity. 'The minute I pop the seal on this boat we get out, we get across to _Three_, and we get the hell away from here. And we don't ever come back. _We don't ever the hell come back.'_

_Gordon,_ Scott wanted to say, _what the fuck is going on?_ But his lips were stuck fast shut, his tongue dry in his mouth. He couldn't have spoken a word if he had tried. And then Gordon's hand moved to the airlock control and Scott could see the airlock hadn't finished cycling and if Gordon popped the seal right now they were going to –

The outer hatch slid abruptly open. For a split second Scott stared at the black chasm of space that opened up before them, and then his eyes slammed shut as he was sucked out of the airlock in a rush of exploding air. For a moment he floated, with his eyes closed tight and the sound of his own breathing in his ears, and then his eyelids popped open and he glimpsed the windmilling of the stars and realised he was spinning. His stomach twisted, heaved, and he swallowed against the rise of vomit in his throat, flung his arms out uselessly to stop himself from cartwheeling into the void. The orange bulk of _Thunderbird Three_ slid into his field of view, followed by the dark field of stars, the battered carcass of the _Hyperion_ and then back to the stars again.

'Gordon,' Scott gasped into the comms, 'where are you?'

'Here,' the voice in his ear said, and suddenly they collided, crashed violently together. Scott's fingers grasped at Gordon's suit, and he felt his brother's arms curl vise-like around him.

'I'm going to stabilise us with the thruster pack,' Gordon's voice crackled through the connection, 'so don't move.'

'Not even to throw up?' It wasn't a joke.

'Not even,' Gordon replied, the rock-steady calmness returned to his voice. He clamped Scott to his chest with one arm, moved the other to the thruster controls.

Scott dug his fingers into Gordon's belt and closed his eyes. He didn't need to see the universe spinning out of control around him. 'Tell me when you're done,' he said, trying to keep the nausea from his voice.

'Nearly there…' Gordon said. His grip on Scott tightened. 'Just don't move.'

There was a moment of silence in which Scott could feel nothing, and then finally Gordon's grip on him relaxed, but didn't let him go.

Scott opened his eyes, was gratified to see that the universe had stopped spinning. He and Gordon floated some distance from _Thunderbird Three_, their explosive exit from the _Hyperion_ having carried them out of the airlock on an oblique trajectory. Gordon's thruster pack reignited and Scott tightened his grip on Gordon's belt as _Thunderbird Three_ lurched suddenly towards them. Devoid of all landmarks of movement, it seemed as though _Three_ was rushing headlong at them, and Scott couldn't help but tense himself as the orange skin of the rocket filled his entire field of view.

_Three's _outer hatch slid open at their approach and Gordon guided them neatly in. The hatch slid shut again as soon as they entered, and then the internal gravity kicked in and spilled them to the floor, slumped them into a heap as oxygen cycled into the chamber.

'What,' said Scott, his chest heaving, 'the fuck,' he breathed in hard, 'was that about?'

In support of Scott's bewilderment, Alan's voice blasted loudly through the internal comms.

'What the hell, guys?'


	4. Chapter 4

**HYPERION**

* * *

><p><strong>PART FOUR <strong>

* * *

><p>Scott leaned back in his chair and rested one arm along the console, tapped the panel absent-mindedly with a finger. He stared hard at Gordon, met the challenge in his brother's eyes. <em>You don't believe me,<em> Gordon's expression said, and Scott's own expression admitted he was having a hard time doing so.

'Tell me,' Scott said, 'one more time, exactly what you saw.'

'Jesus, Scott, how many times do we have to go over this?' Gordon was still wearing his spacesuit, as was Scott, their helmets resting on the floor at their feet. The colour had returned to Gordon's cheeks, the tan of his face contrasting strongly with the pale silver of the suit.

'I agree.' Alan folded his arms and leaned back against the bulkhead. 'I'm gonna need to hear it again. That's one far out – '

Gordon looked up sharply. 'What are you doing? I told you to get us the hell out of here!'

'Get us the hell out to _where?' _Alan pushed himself away from the wall. 'Where do you want to go? What's got you so scared?'

'Al,' Scott said. 'You're not helping.'

Alan slumped back against the wall.

'Now.' Scott turned to Gordon. 'From the beginning.'

Gordon looked at Scott. Swallowed. Rubbed a hand against his thigh. 'After we separated on the _Hyperion_, I checked out the rest of the ship.' His eyes darted from Scott to Alan and back again. 'Because, you know, eight years is a long time out …' Gordon's hand halted in its movement, the fingers curling slowly into his palm. 'In what must have been their sleeping quarters,' Gordon's eyes fixed tight on Scott, 'I found Gunnar and Holman. The _real_ Gunnar and Holman.'

'Their bodies, you mean.'

'Yes,' Gordon said. 'Their mummified remains. They probably died not long into the mission and – '

'What did they die from?' The question flew out of Alan's mouth before Gordon had a chance to finish his sentence.

'I don't know.' Gordon shot Alan a withering glare, said sarcastically, 'I didn't take the time to perform an autopsy.'

'Then how do you know the bodies were Gunnar and Holman?' Alan persisted.

'Because, genius, they were still wearing their uniforms. I saw the name tags on the suits. It had to be them.'

'How is that possible?' Scott searched Gordon's face. 'I saw them with my own eyes. Alive. _You_ saw them.'

'_It wasn't them!'_

Silence fell in the tiny space. Scott leant forward in his chair, rested his head in his hands and exhaled heavily. He was remembering the expression in Holman's dead eyes, the fear he'd felt when those eyes had looked at him. Had looked _through_ him. He raised his head. 'Gordon – '

'Scott, he's really going overboard.' Alan took a step away from the wall, waved a hand exasperated through the air. 'What do you think happened out there, Gordon? A pair of aliens got on board the _Hyperion_, killed the astronauts, then took it for a joyride to Mars?'

'I don't _know_ what happened. All I know is that those men weren't – ' Gordon stopped. 'What was that?'

'What was what?' Alan asked.

'Shh.' Gordon held a hand up, cocked his head and listened intently. 'That. What was that?'

'I didn't hear anything. You're losing it.'

A faint ping sounded on the outside of _Thunderbird Three._

'That,' Gordon said.

Alan shrugged. 'Space junk. A meteorite, probably. It happens. You haven't been in space enough times to – '

'There it is again.'

All three of them paused to listen as the faint sound of movement transferred through the hull.

Gordon rose from his seat. 'There's something out there.'

'Not possible,' Alan said.

'Quiet.' Scott strode to the bulkhead wall and leaned his head towards it, pressed against it with the tips of his fingers.

'I tell you, Scott,' Alan's voice was insistent, 'it's not possible!'

'Shut up!' barked Scott and Gordon in unison.

And then they heard it. The unmistakeable sound of scrabbling on the hull.

Scott's fingers snapped back from the bulkhead as though they had been burned. He backed away from the wall, turned and looked at his younger brothers.

Alan swallowed, eyes wide in his pale face. 'It's just not _possible!'_

* * *

><p>'What the hell is it?' Alan leaned close to the external monitor, watched as what, by all rational measures, looked like a man crawled along the hull of <em>Thunderbird Three. <em>'That can't be what it looks like.'

'Tell us, Al,' said Gordon, his attention fixed entirely on the monitor. 'What does it look like?'

Alan stared at the screen. It definitely looked like a man, feeling his way along _Three's _burnt orange skin like a blind man feeling his way through an unfamiliar room. 'What's it doing?'

'Looking for us.'

'Shit, Gordon. Don't say things like that.'

'I think he's right.' Scott leant closer to the monitor. 'Every time we speak, it scratches at the hull. Like it can hear us or – '

As if on cue, the scrabbling echoed loudly through the bulkhead, made them all jump.

'There's no way it can hear us out there,' Alan whispered.

Gordon turned on Alan. 'If you'd got us out of here when I told you to – '

'Keep your voice down,' Alan hissed.

'What for, if it can't hear us?'

'But – '

'But nothing!'

'Quiet!' Scott leaned in for a better look. 'However it's doing it, it knows exactly where we are. We need to get _Three_ out of here, but we need to get that thing off the hull first.'

'Maybe it'll dislodge if we move?' Even as he said it, Alan knew it was a stupid idea.

'Are you serious?' Gordon said. 'Look at it!'

Alan looked at it. Gordon was right. There was no way they could dislodge it in the vacuum of space. If _Thunderbird Three_ took off, the creature would cling to the hull like just another fixture.

'One of us is going to have to go out there.' Gordon retrieved his helmet from where it rested on the floor.

'What are you going to do – wrestle it off the hull?' Alan's voice had taken on a panicked edge. 'Jesus Christ, look at it. It doesn't even have a spacesuit on. We have no idea what that thing is capable of.'

'We need to get it off the hull, and we need to get it off _now.'_ Gordon moved his hand to the weapon at his belt.

Alan looked at Gordon's fingers, curled around the butt of his pistol. 'And you think shooting it will work?'

'What else do you suggest?'

'Fellas.' Scott nodded at the screen, where the creature had vanished from the camera's field of view. 'It might not matter. It's gone.'

'Shit.' Gordon dropped his helmet onto the nearest chair and turned back to the monitor. 'It's not gone. Find it.'

Alan turned back to the console and tracked the camera across the hull. 'I don't see it.'

'It's out there somewhere,' Gordon said grimly, 'looking for a way in.'

* * *

><p>It was only a matter of seconds, but it seemed like an eternity as Alan scanned methodically through <em>Thunderbird Three's<em> exterior camera array. 'Got it,' he said as he increased the magnification and zoomed in for a close-up on the dull and lifeless face.

'It's Holman,' Gordon said.

Illuminated faintly by the far-distant sun, Holman's face betrayed no emotion, his eyes focussed intently on what his hands were doing, somewhere outside the camera's field of view.

'What's he doing?' Scott leaned closer to the monitor. 'Pan down. Show me what he's doing.'

Alan obediently panned the camera downwards, focussed the lens on Holman's scrabbling fingers.

'Shit.' The word escaped from all three of them at once.

'It's at the airlock.' Alan's voice raised slightly in pitch. 'It's at the fucking airlock!'

'We should have got out of here when we had the chance.' Gordon's hand slammed against the panel as he spun angrily on Alan. 'I told you to get us the hell out of here!'

'Gordon.' Scott's voice was calm, low, but it held the slightest hint of anger, the slightest hint of murderous intent. He scooped up Gordon's helmet and shoved it at him. 'Suit up.'

Gordon's hands grasped reflexively at the helmet and held it where it had hit him, in the stomach. 'If we're doing what I think we're doing, then we're going to need a bigger gun.'

'Then get a bigger gun.' Scott bent down and scooped up his own helmet. 'Al, let it into the airlock.'

Alan's eyes opened just that bit wider. 'What?'

'We can't afford to let it damage the external mechanism,' Scott enunciated his words carefully, 'so open the airlock, and let it in.'

'You can't be serious.'

'Al.' Scott was fast losing patience. 'Either it gets in on its own, or we let it in and we deal with it. On _our_ terms.'

* * *

><p>Gordon hefted the laser rifle in his hands and disconnected the safety. He watched as his brother slid the pistol from his holster and did the same. 'So what's the plan?' he asked in the confined space of the elevator.<p>

Scott's fingers opened and closed reflexively around the butt of his weapon. 'I don't know.'

Gordon snorted softly. 'Now is not the time to be telling me that.'

There was a faint chime as the elevator reached the airlock level and the door hissed softly open. Scott didn't move. He turned to look at Gordon as the door hissed closed again, shutting them in.

'You saw it, Gordon. When we were on board _Hyperion,_ it understood what I was saying. There has to be an intelligence in there somewhere. If it's alien life, then it's the first alien life the human race has encountered, and we need to give it a chance.'

Gordon stared at Scott as though he had grown another head. 'But it killed those astronauts – '

'We don't know that.'

' – and it took on their form – '

'We don't know that.'

' – and quite probably that's what it wants to do to us, too.'

'_Gordon's right.' _Alan's voice interjected through the comms. _'Why else would it be trying so hard to get in?'_

'I don't care.' Scott keyed open the elevator door. 'Whatever it's doing, whatever we _think_ it's doing, I want to try and reason with it first.'

Gordon waited for Scott to pass through the door and into the short passageway beyond. 'And what if there's no reasoning with it?'

Scott didn't turn around. 'Then we kill it.'

Alan's disembodied voice floated through the comms. _'And what if it can't be killed?'_

'Then you'd better lock the flight deck door.'

* * *

><p>Scott leaned towards the airlock door and peered through the vapour-misted viewport.<p>

Inside the confined space Holman waited with all the appearance of patience, arms hanging lifeless at his sides and a slight unsteadiness to his stance, as though he were readjusting to gravity after his stint clinging to the hull. He looked up slowly as Scott's face appeared in the tiny window, the pale eyes glinting sharply in the overhead lighting. Scott stared back, unflinching.

'Check your seals,' Scott said to Gordon, his eyes never leaving Holman's piercing gaze. 'I don't want this thing making skin-to-skin contact.'

'No chance of that.' Gordon had already checked his seals, but found his fingers reaching for the collar of his suit again. He had begun sweating inside the confines of the suit, and he felt suddenly claustrophobic. 'What's it doing?'

'Staring.' Scott studied the sallow face, the pale eyes, the barely perceptible twitching of the lips. 'Just staring.' With an effort he broke away from Holman's gaze and stepped away from the airlock door. 'Okay, this is the plan.' He turned to look at Gordon. 'Gordon, you stay exactly where you are. Alan?'

'_Reading.' _Alan's voice rang clear in their earpieces.

'When I give the signal, I want you to open the inner door remotely. I'll stay here and attempt to communicate with Holman when he comes out.'

'_Understood. But… what if that doesn't work?'_

'Then I pop him.' Gordon hefted the rifle in his hand.

Scott turned to face Gordon. 'Not until I give the signal. We need to give it a chance.'

'But Scott – '

'Listen, Gordon. They showed no signs of hostility aboard _Hyperion_. If they wanted to kill us, they would have done it then. We need to give them a chance.'

'But – '

'Just – ' Scott silenced Gordon with his eyes. ' – be ready.'

Gordon tightened his fingers around the rifle stock, spread his legs for stability and aimed the weapon towards the airlock door. He nodded. 'Ready.'

With a last look at his brother Scott raised his pistol, aimed it towards the door and took another step back. 'Alan,' he said, his voice as tight as corded steel. 'Open the airlock.'

If there was any response from Alan, it was drowned out by the pounding of blood in Scott's ears, the hard rasp of his breathing in the echoing spaces of his helmet. Reason told him he had nothing to fear, but the primeval core of him, that part of humanity that was afraid of ghosts and spiders and the dark, screamed incoherently at the back of his brain, urging him to run. _Run! _

Scott held his breath, a moment of suspended time as the airlock slid open with a muted _whoosh_ and removed the last, the final, barrier between himself and the unknown. Scott's hand shifted around his weapon, the fingers inside his gloves slick with sweat.

'Holman,' he called into the open chamber. 'Holman?'

There was no response. No movement. Just a blank, yawning chasm into a universe of terror.

Scott inched his way towards the door, weapon held at the ready. 'Holman?'

The blank eyes stared back at him.

Scott edged closer. 'We just want to talk.'

'Too close,' Gordon warned through the comms.

Scott ignored the voice in his ear. 'Can you talk to me, Holman? Do you understand what I'm saying?'

Holman's head lifted, the lips working their way back from the yellow teeth.

'You understand me, don't you.' Scott glanced back at Gordon with the glimmer of triumph in his eyes. 'C'mon, buddy.' He turned back to Holman. 'Say something. Give me a sign – '

A sudden wail filled the airlock, bounced echoing from the metal walls and drowned out all thought and all sound. Before Scott's eyes Holman's mouth split wide on its hinges, the lips pulling back from the rotten teeth, the black tongue glistening in the yawning cavern of the mouth.

'_Holy – ' _Scott took a frantic step back, but it was too late. Holman launched at him, was on him, a seething bag of sinew and bone and gaping slathering mouth that slammed against him, winded him on impact and knocked him sprawling to the deck.

_Gordon!_ Scott tried to shout, to scream, but his voice failed to engage, his lungs paralysed and empty of air, his chest pulsing with crushing pain. He gasped on nothing, tried to drag air into his unwilling lungs, pushed feebly at Holman as blackness danced at the edges of his vision.

An explosion of light filled the passageway, a hollow pop that muffled through his helmet, but instead of falling away from him Holman slammed harder against him, propelled forward by the impact from Gordon's shot. Scott caught a glimpse of Gordon over Holman's shoulder, rifle raised and aimed towards them. There was another flash of light, another _thud_ that transferred from Holman's body into his, but the writhing, slavering creature on top of him continued its onslaught.

Somewhere somebody was screaming, and despite the fact that his lungs had frozen inside him, Scott feared it might have been him. Holman's face was butted up against the faceplate of his helmet, the teeth gnashing, the tongue slathering against the perspex and leaving gobbets of spit and slime draped across his field of view. Fingers like claws clamped around his arms, scrabbling wildly, trying to tear through his spacesuit and into his flesh. There was another flash of light, another pop, another _thud,_ and still the jaws gnashed in his face, the fingers trying to rip their way through him.

Scott closed his eyes against the slavering face, sucked one hard, deep breath into his frozen chest as his nervous system finally responded to the adrenaline that filled his bloodstream, his brain re-engaging as air rushed at last into his lungs.

'Gordon,' he gasped, realised that it was Gordon who had been screaming in his ear all along.

'_JesusChristthismotherfuckerwon'tdie!'_

Scott worked his arms beneath Holman's chest, tried to push the creature bodily away from him. _'Kill it!_

There was another pop, another _thud,_ and another, and Gordon's voice filled his ears with the same repeated mantra, 'Jesus Christ, this fucker won't die!'

'_Then get it the hell off me!'_

Gordon's shadow fell on them, and he saw his brother's hands clamp around Holman's shoulders, heaving at him bodily. But it was no use, Holman was anchored hard against Scott, the legs clamped tight around him, the fingers clawing and twisting into the fabric of his suit. Any second now and the fabric would part, and Holman's fingers would be tearing into his skin.

'Get it off me,' he gasped again.

Scott felt rather than heard the toughened fabric tear, felt the pressure loss in his suit as the oxygen began to bleed out through the torn openings. It was getting hotter, harder to breathe, and he couldn't fight against Holman much longer. Desperately, Scott brought his knee up between them, buried his foot into Holman's groin and pushed with all his strength. The vestiges of his spacesuit gave way under the pressure, great handfuls of it separating into silver shreds that were carried away between Holman's grasping fingers as he went sailing clumsily backwards. Gordon ducked aside as the creature catapulted past him in a whirl of flailing limbs and sprawled writhing onto its back.

In an instant Gordon was poised over the seething mass of arms and legs, the rifle aimed, a volley of laser fire cracking in lightning bursts point-blank into Holman's stomach, his chest, his face.

'Nothing's happening,' Gordon shouted as his finger deployed again and again on the trigger. 'Why won't this bastard die?'

Scott scrambled back on his elbows, crab-walked clumsily away from the writhing Holman until he came up hard against the bulkhead, watched as Gordon fired shot after shot into Holman's gaping maw. With each burst Holman's head slammed back against the metal floor and raised up again, the eyes glaring and malevolent, the lips twisted and slavering over the bared teeth. It was as though the weapon's energy was being absorbed somehow, dissipating across Holman's pallid skin, the body rising higher and higher in each interval between bursts. Any moment now and Holman would be back on his feet…

Gordon stepped closer to the creature, pumped another round of laser fire right between Holman's eyes. 'Scott,' he panted into his comms. 'I don't know how much longer the power pack is going to last. We need more firepower – Alan!' he shouted into the helmet mic. 'Alan!'

'_On my way.'_

Scott barely heard Alan's voice over the roar of noise in his head. He staggered upright, leant breathless against the inner bulkhead, tried to stand on legs that seemed no longer capable of holding him up. He choked on the ebbing oxygen in his suit, realised that if Gordon was to have a chance, if any of them were to have a chance, he needed to breathe. His hands fumbled for the seals at his throat, and he closed his eyes as he slid the helmet over his head and dropped it to the floor, inhaling gratefully at the cool oxygen of _Thunderbird Three's _interior.

'Scott!'

Scott's eyes flew open at Gordon's shout, saw Holman lash a hand out and clamp it tight around his brother's ankle and heave with a strength that belied the sinewy, skeletal structure. Gordon toppled off-balance, fell crashing backwards, the rifle knocked from his grip and clattering noisily along the passageway.

'Gordon!' Scott launched forward from the bulkhead and scooped up the laser rifle from where it had gone spinning across the floor. 'Get away from it!'

'Get away from it?' Gordon sprawled on his back, lashing out with his free foot and kicking at the hand that grasped him. His fingers scrabbled futilely at the smooth metal of the deck as he tried to drag himself away from Holman. _'The fuck how?'_

'Then just… _hold on!'_

In desperation Scott leapt onto the writhing, wriggling mass that was Holman, straddled the sinewy chest, spun the rifle in his hands and brought the butt down in a final, anguished attack into the socket of Holman's eye. There was a sickening crunch, brute force succeeding where the energy weapon had not, and Scott suppressed a grimace as the rifle stock sank past the gelatinous bulb of Holman's eye, parted the bone and speared deep into the dark, sticky mass of brain. Scott raised the rifle, slammed it down again into the gaping hole he'd made in Holman's skull, his knees tightening their grip around Holman's chest as the body bucked beneath him, the sinewy limbs twitching, the legs writhing violently and slamming loudly against the metal of the floor.

'Just… fucking… _die!'_ Scott ignored the claw-like hands that flailed against him, raised the rifle high and smashed it down again and again and again. And again, not satisfied until the writhing body was still and Holman's head was a stinking, pulpy mass that stained the floor… the walls… and Scott.

'Son of a _bitch!' _Scott tasted metal in his mouth and spat, followed the gobbet of tainted saliva with his eyes. The rifle fell from his fingers, fell clattering into a pool of black blood.

'Scott?' Gordon's boots appeared in Scott's peripheral vision, paused just at the edge of the spreading pool. 'You okay?'

Scott sat back on his haunches, surrounded by the black morass of what was left of Holman's skull, and wiped a hand across his face. 'I don't know.' He stared at fingers covered with the pieces of Holman that stained his face. 'But I want that thing the hell off this ship.'


End file.
